I found a way to save ten million dollars

I was working in a developing country, advising the board of a tier-one telco on the implementation of their first-ever OSS (they’d only ever operated their networks at NMS level previously). During the analysis phase I came across some data that showed an interesting opportunity for an innovation relating to their voice Points of Interconnect (PoI).

From a back-of-a-paper napkin analysis it seemed that a ~$50-100k investment could’ve resulted in an improvement to the company’s profit by at least $10M. I ran the concept, and the numbers, past their head of switching. His response was, “I think you’re right…. but I’m not going to recommend it.”

You could say that I was a little bewildered.

He then followed with, “You have to see this from my perspective. If I recommend this project and it succeeds, I receive no benefit. I’m not due for promotion for another two years at the earliest. I will barely receive any recognition at all, certainly no financial reward. The company receives all the benefits. But if the project fails, I will be put aside, passed over for any future promotions. It would be a career killer.”

He was right. I hadn’t seen it from his perspective… still not sure that I do, but as a consultant, I was only ever passing through their corporate culture rather than having a 4-5 decade career embedded within it.

It wasn’t within my OSS scope, but I quietly mentioned it to the board. They delegated the decision back to the head of switching. The project was not recommended to proceed, not even for further analysis.

It’s interesting the human factors that come into play when project investment is under evaluation isn’t it? What human factors have you seen influence purchasing decisions?